Banished
by ButInEssenceDivided
Summary: Weeks after Zuko's banishment, every member of the Fire Nation Royal Family is lost.


Zuko tore at the ragged skin at the edge of his mark, letting his fingernails sink in towards his cheekbones. The blisters still seared, and his eye itself was wrapped tightly in thick bandages. Crouched before the mirror in his quarters, he peered up at himself through his one good eye. Cringing, he turned away. His scalp still stung from the razor he had taken to his hair the day he set foot on his ship.

Azula's last words to him were,"Make sure you look the part of an exile, Zu-zu!" She had been leaning over a balcony of the palace pavilion. He had followed her advice alone in the fiery hull of his war ship. Azula is always right.

"I want to go home," he said, staring again into the mirror. The burned, bald boy in the glass's lips moved, and then trembled. Zuko extended his palm and let flames wash over his hands that, weeks before, had been as smooth as silk. It was only a whisper of the agony of the Agni Kai, but the pain kept Zuko from crying. He didn't want salty tears on his raw face. He didn't want the mess tears would make of his bandages. He didn't want the shame.

"No," he said, trying to deepen his voice. "I need to go home." He squared his shoulders, which had slumped under the weight of armor two sizes too big. "I will go home. I am going to find the Avatar."

Once again the enormity of his impossible task came back to him, lashing him like cold wind, drowning him like water, crushing him like a rockslide and burning him like fire. There was no one to see him. He had left his crew in a rage. He was completely alone in the little room that rocked in a way he still had not gotten used to.

Letting the weight of his armor sink him to the floor, Zuko crumpled and sobbed.

The iron door clanged as someone knocked on it.

"Leave me!" Zuko roared.

"Prince Zuko," said the quiet voice of Uncle Iroh. "Prince Zuko, please let me in."

"I don't care what you do," said Zuko.

The old man in white robes pushed the door open, saw Zuko at his feet, and knelt beside him.

Zuko felt a hand on his shoulder and it felt like his fathers'.

"Prince Zuko, you must get a good night's rest."

"Don't tell me what to do. You're not my father."

"Prince Zuko you have not slept in days."

"It - it -" Zuko fell silent.

"What is it?"

"It hurts too much to close my eye."

Iroh cupped Zuko's face in his hands, holding strong when Zuko tried to jerk away. "Let yourself heal. Let me take you to the healers of the Northern Water Tribe," said Iroh.

"There is no time for water bender scum. I will find the Avatar if it takes me until the day I die," said Zuko.

Iroh shook his head, but he felt the weight of the skinny thirteen year old slide into him, and he stayed at Zuko's side as the boy cried burning hot tears. Through the small circular port window, the minarets of a distant Earth Kingdom city grew smaller and smaller and the black sea surrounded the ship.

Ursa pulled a green shawl more closely around her. In the shadows of the sky-piercing stone minarets, the air was even colder than usual. Two years had passed but she felt she would never get used to the absence of fire and warmth.

"It's a little late for a little lady like you to be out all alone, isn't it?" said a voice from an alley.

Ursa whirled around to see a ring of Earth Kingdom thugs slinking towards her. One crumbled a rock casually, but menacingly. The look in his eye as he looked her up and down said that he could as easily crumble her bones.

She drew back her sleeves to unleash months of pent up fire at them, but quickly changed her mind and closed her fingers around a ruby dagger. If she firebended in front of them, she would have to kill all five men.

Ursa had promised the moon, the only spirit she still believed in now that the sun had turned his back on her, that she would never kill again.

"Better take that off your hands," growled the leader of the pack, eying the silver blade.

Ursa's skin crawled. There had been a time when these men could have been blinded for looking at her. The sword master, Piandao, once showed her extremely effective dagger techniques. When Ursa jabbed the knife at the closest man, the ring scattered, and she ran away, the skirts of her simple Earth Kingdom dress whipping around her.

Her footsteps pounded the cobblestone streets, and Ursa kept her knife at her side. Her boardinghouse wasn't far, but her neighborhood was a rough one and the queen of the Fire Nation had grown used to protecting herself.

The dagger had been a wedding gift from Ozai almost fifteen years previously. "Now you will be as dangerous as you are beautiful," he said, holding the ruby-laden hilt to the light. Over the past two years, Ursa had dug the jewels out one by one to pawn for food, clothes, and shelter, and now only three glinted.

"Lia!" the doorway of the boardinghouse was open wide, and Nell, the tall, stout innkeeper beckoned for Ursa to come in from the dark.

It took a beat for Ursa to respond and remember that she was going by "Lia" in this town. She smiled at Nell and hurried towards her, stowing away the dagger.

A cluster of women circled around the kitchen table. They welcomed Ursa into the fold as she shook her shawl off her shoulders.

"I feel a lot safer now that those Fire Nation sailors are out of here," Nell said as she pulled the door closed behind her.

"Fire nation?" Ursa worked hard to keep her tone neutral. "You saw fire nation sailors? Here?"

"Well I didn't see them. But Kyoko from the market told me they were at the port. Whole ship full."

"Are they going to attack us?" a young woman asked, her eyes wide.

"Oh I doubt it. Kyoko said it wasn't an imperial fleet or anything like that. Just an old ironside floater captained by some banished prince," Nell said.

Other women chuckled with nervous relief, but Ursa felt her neck snapped as she turned quickly to look Nell in the eyes.

"Banished prince? The Fire Nation Prince? The Fire Lord's son?"

"Well it wasn't the Earth King's son on that Fire Nation boat, honey." Nell's dark brown eyes were looking at Ursa a little too keenly.

"What, did the Fire Lord exile his own firstborn?" a woman asked incredulously.

Ursa knotted her hands together in her lap.

"Can't say I'm surprised," Nell shrugged. "What's the prince's name again? Zazu?"

"Oh I never can keep up with that Fire Nation gossip," someone laughed heartily. "Probably something like Zino."

"Zuko," Ursa corrected softly.

No one heard her. Ursa slipped out of the kitchen and stumbled up the stairs. Once inside her small room, she let frustrated tears fall. Zuko. Her only son had been in the city, she had been closer to him than she had in two years. Now he was sailing further away than ever.

Ozai had banished him. Ursa threw her dagger into the wall in fury, aiming precisely a crack between two stones. The dagger stuck.

Fiery blades whistled past Azula's ears. She rolled into a somersault, sending waves of lightning at the Royal Fire Benders who were training her.

"Precision, Azula!" Ozai's voice rained down on her, extinguishing her flames. "What good is lightning if you can't learn to control it? Show me that sequence again."

Azula's calf muscles were shaking, and her face was slick with sweat. She could feel electric sparks of frustration, but she bowed deeply to her father. "Yes, my lord."

She began again, and sent carefully measured bolts of lightning at each fire master in turn. Her breathing was ragged and her clothes were singed from her hours of practice.

With Zuko gone, Azula had thought she would have everything she ever wanted. But the full heat of Ozai's attention and anger scorched her. She had been pulled out of school and forced to practice firebending ten hours every day. Tonight she was hours over time, but Ozai had called her to perform in the throne room and refused to end the session until Azula could send lightning into the four cardinal directions at once. She tried and tried for an approving nod or small smile. Any sign of her father's pride. Azula found herself wishing for someone to calm her father's temper. Someone to stand between her and the Fire Lord, protecting her. Someone like her mother.

At the thought of Ursa, Azula's concentration broke and her blue fire fizzled to red. Terrified, she looked to her father, braced for his disappointment.

The Fire Lord was not even looking at her. He was deep in conversation with a member of his war counsel.

Azula stomped her foot. She sent lightning higher and higher, letting it crack the hall from the domed ceilings to the black floor. She sent flames as close to Ozai as she dared.

Finally, he glanced up at her. "Yes, yes, Princess Azula, you are dismissed."

Unable to keep a pout from her lips, Azula protested. "But Father -!"

"Your audience here is over. Leave immediately."

Azula knelt before the pedestal and backed slowly out of the throne room. Safely outside, she stalked past servants, stormed up staircases, and threw herself down on her downy bed. She toyed with the idea of setting her room on fire. Perhaps then her father would pay attention to her.

I'm not a child anymore, she thought, and she overcame rash impulse. She smeared ointment on the fresh burns training accrued, and collapsed into dreamless sleep.

Fire Lord Ozai paced the perimeter of his chambers. Guards were outside, he knew. No one would be able to get through the highest windows of the palace. Master fire benders surrounded him, and master fire benders protected his daughter, the only member of his family who had not dishonored him.

Still, Ozai could not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Zuko prostrate before him, crying for mercy. The sickening sight would give way to blackness, and his son's anguished screams would ring in Ozai's ears long after he sat bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding.

Night after night, Zuko's pleading haunted him. He had refused to see his son after the Agni Kai. It had been Azula had told him with relish how grotesque the burns were. Ozai couldn't picture his son's clear face, the image of his own, so disfigured, but it didn't stop his subconscious from trying. Monstrous versions of Zuko always followed the dreams of screams.

Ozai poured himself a cool drink of water from a basin and tried to breathe slowly. He needed a night's sleep for the war meetings tomorrow. He needed to lead his nation well.

Tonight it was his wife who walked through his nightmares. Ursa, walking farther and farther away from her. Ozai ran after her, arms outstretched. He begged like Zuko. The closer he got, the more she faded. She met his gaze in the fierce, proud gaze on her face when he laid down his verdict. Then she dissipated like steam.

Ozai woke up, his heartbeat pounding in his temples. Zuko had never stopped asking where his mother was, but the honest answer was that Ozai had no idea. She had escaped him, in dreams and in life she eluded him.

He was on his feet again, walking back and forth, and he cringed finding himself under the gaze of the newly installed portrait of his father. Azulon glared down at him from the spot once occupied by a picture of Zuko and Azula dressed like royalty. Before that, the frame had held a painting of his entire family. A young Zuko on his knee, beautiful Ursa at his side, and an innocent baby Azula.

The nightmare versions of his family were real now, and those happy memories were what felt like a dream.


End file.
